The Reunion
by poeticgrace
Summary: Puck sees Rachel for the first time in ten years.


Red and white crepe paper streamers; cheap but cold and free beer; and a few hundred faces of people that he used to know – that is what greeted Noah Puckerman the first time he walked into William McKinley High School in a more than a decade. He hadn't even been to Lima in five years, ever since he made enough money to move his mom and sister out to the West Coast and Jake moved to New York with Marley after his own high school graduation. He hadn't missed the town or the high school. Most of the memories he had made here were lost to time. And yet, there were faces (_okay, a face_) he had missed more than he had ever let on.

He knew that he was one of the success stories of his graduating class. They had actually asked him to make some kind of speech or something; his publicist had run it by him before he passed. He couldn't have imagined such an offer when he was eighteen, and he had no intention of allowing them to capitalize on him now that he was famous. Instead, he had allowed a designer to send over an expensive suit and booked a first-class ticket back to Ohio and made sure that he had a limo idling outside when he wanted to make his inevitable getaway.

As he pulled on his collar and scanned the room, Puck thought about how few people he had kept in contact with over the years. He had lost touch with most of them a couple years after graduation. He still talked to Quinn once a year (on Beth's birthday) and occasionally ran into Mercedes at major events in LA. The closest friend he had kept from high school was Mike Chang, who regularly choreographed the impressive stage shows that accompanied his concert performances. Other than that, it had been virtually radio silence.

And yet, when his eyes met hers across the crowded gymnasium, Puck would have sworn that not a single minute had passed. She looked just as young as she had the last time he'd seen her, just as beautiful and unreachable. He watched her lean over to say something to Santana and then throw her head back and laugh. He lifted his beer in acknowledgement, and before long, they were both making their way toward each other.

"Noah," she exhaled softly as he leaned forward to brush a chaste kiss to her cheek. "I haven't seen you in ages." She paused for a moment and smiled prettily. "Well, I suppose that's not quite true. I see your face all the time on magazines. It seems like you're everywhere these days! I don't know if you got my note when you won last year, but I was so excited when you performed at the Grammys."

He had gotten the note. There had been hundreds of them, but hers was the only one that he kept. It was folded in the bottom of his guitar case next to a photograph of Beth. "There were a lot of notes," he lied. She didn't need to know that he carried it with him everywhere. "I'm sure you know what that's like. Congratulations on the Tony, by the way. I wanted to catch your show when I was in New York a few months ago, I heard the reviews were great."

"Yes, thank you, they've been quite generous."

Puck smiled as she nervously twirled a strand of mahogany hair around her slender finger. "I can't believe I haven't seen you since high school," he murmured. There had been a time when he couldn't escape her even for a day. "You look great though, Berry, still as beautiful as ever." His smile grew even wider when she began to blush. "And you're a star just like you always wanted, successful and rich to boot, no doubt."

"I have the career that I always wanted," she agreed amicably, "but I've also learned that having it all doesn't mean just having a successful career."

"Well, I heard that you got married too, right? Mike said that you got back together with St. James in college or something," he rattled on. It had taken his friend a generous bottle of aged whiskey to pull Puck out of that one. "Do you have kids?"

"One that's five and one that's three," she answered. She reached into her small clutch purse to produce a photograph. It was a stylish black and white shot of Rachel with an older boy standing behind her left shoulder and a little girl in her lap. "But Jesse and I got divorced two years ago."

Puck wrinkled his brow. His friend had failed to mention this. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"I'm not," she said dismissively. "He got a new girlfriend and I got custody of my kids. I think I won."

"Definitely," he smirked. That was the girl he knew. "What are their names? Tell me about them."

Rachel's face lit up in the way that mother's faces do when someone asks them to talk about their children. It was a passion he hadn't seen early when she had talked about her career or the accolades that had come with it. "James, my son, is surprisingly athletic. Despite my best attempts, he could actually care less about music. He adores hockey and is quite the skater. He's going to play in his first youth league this fall," she told him excitedly. "And Maddie, Noah, I swear she was born in ballet shoes. She loves to dance. She's so talented; you should see her. I know I'm partial, but I'm already dreaming of the day when I see her with the NYC Ballet."

"You always were a lofty dreamer, Berry."

She should her head and giggled in the same way that she always had. "You're one to talk, Noah, look at you! You got out of Lima just like you always wanted," she said. Her voice was soft but proud. "This place always held you back. I knew that you were destined for something more; I'm so glad that you got free of all the things that haunted your days in Lima."

"You're the only one who ever thought I'd be more," he laughed humorlessly. Even his own mother had figured he'd end up nothing more than a Lima Loser installing pools way past his prime. A chance meeting in Los Angeles had changed all that, and Puck hadn't looked back since. He didn't like to look at the old scars; that got him nowhere. Instead, he liked to focus on the here and now, and his present was looking pretty great. "Do you want to sit down and catch up some more? I don't really talk to that many people these days, but it's nice being here with you."

Rachel knew it was uncharacteristic of him to be so honest. She allowed him to press his hand against her lower back and guide her through the room. Their old classmates watched them curiously. They were definitely two of the most well-known alumni from the McKinley Class of 2012. She was glad that no one was approaching them to interrupt. There was a nice wall of safety built up around the conversation she was having with Noah. It was like he understood how she'd been without explanation, and it was kind of nice to not have to admit to all her mistakes to everyone.

"So who have you kept in touch with?" Puck said once they'd sat down at a small table in the far corner near the entrance to the girls' locker room. "What about Finn? Have you seen him?"

"Not in years," she admitted. "I talk to Kurt every once in awhile, but after Finn and I broke up, we both needed the time and the distance. After awhile, he just sort of slipped of my radar. Did you know that he married Britt? I never saw the two of them together."

Puck actually did know that. Santana had called her quite drunk to tell him while he was on tour in Singapore, the only time he had spoken to her since he'd left Ohio and he hadn't heard from her since. He had sent his best wishes and an expensive bottle of champagne. Their marriage made sense really; they were two of the only ones who stayed round their hometown once the blonde had failed out of MIT. Brittany had her own dance studio downtown and Finn had taken over for Mr. Schuester once he'd moved down to Florida to help take care of Emma's ailing parents.

"How about you?" she asked. "From what I have heard from the few people I've talked to so far, you haven't really kept up with that many people either. I don't see Tina. How about her?"

"No, but I hear she's in Queens. Mike said that she met some guy in Tokyo while she was studying art abroad junior year. You should look her up," Puck told her. She nodded thoughtfully as if she really was going to get in touch with the Asian girl. She wasn't at the reunion because she was a year younger than them, but Puck thought that she belonged there. Brittany was only there somewhere (he'd seen her briefly) because of Finn and Blaine was there with Kurt. Sam should have been there too. "I still talk to Quinn once a year."

"I got a Christmas card from her last year," Rachel smiled. "Her family is beautiful."

"Yeah, she found the man of her dreams,' he said fondly. He was really happy for Quinn, which was surprisingly considering all the things they'd been through. "I always sort of thought she'd end up with Finn, no offense. They just had Lima lifers written all over them, you know?"

"Funny, back then, she said that about you," Rachel muttered. There were still sore spots there when it came to her former blonde rival. "She also thought that we'd end up together."

Puck wasn't going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. "Whatever, it doesn't matter," he shrugged it off. He couldn't think about what could have been. "You'll never guess who I saw last week though."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mike and I were getting ready for a shoot for my new video, and Matt came in to audition for one of the dance spots," he said excitedly. It had been good running into the guy. "He used to be one of my best friends."

Puck and Rachel sat there talking for hours. Old friends came by to catch up, but the core of the conversation remained just the two of them. Before long, the school's current principal flashed the lights and told them that it was time for him to lock up the school. Puck helped Rachel find her coat from the pile on the bleachers and offered her a ride back to her fathers' house in the limo. She assured him that she was okay to drive since she hadn't been drinking but still allowed him to walk her to her rental car.

"Let's do this again, okay?" she asked as she leaned back against the car. "Ten years, is that really what it's been, Noah? It doesn't feel like it's been that long. We can't let it be that long again."

"Can't believe how time flies," he murmured as he leaned over to kiss her. His eyes slipped shut and he soaked in her warmth. His signature smirk slipped back into place when he pulled back again. "I look at you and I swear not a single moment has passed."

Rachel reached up to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear. "Part of me is afraid to say goodbye," she confessed in a small voice. "I'm afraid I won't see you again. It's almost enough to make a girl cry, Noah. You have to promise we won't lose touch."

Puck reached into his pocket and scribbled his private cell number down on the back of an old receipt. He could see how sad, how lonely she was. That was something he understood all too well. It could get lonely at the top. But those sad stories made for better songs later on. It made his lyrics personal and real to millions of fans around the world. The way Rachel could emote on stage had the same effect. She had always been that good.

He drew her into his arms again and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "We won't lose touch, Rach," he promised. His voice, she swore later, sounded just like it had that day when he said goodbye to her at the train station. "I know everything seems dark right now. I wish I could make it better."

"That'd be nice, but it wouldn't be very realistic," she laughed. It had been a long time since she had allowed anyone other than her fathers to see her as anything less than perfect. She even kept up the charade for her kids. "I'm not the only one who needs a little fixing, huh? But don't change, Noah, please. Whatever it is, it has made us better. It has made us better artists and better people."

"It's also made us lonely."

"So we'll be separated from everyone else but not from each other," she mused poetically. It was such a simple thought but a comforting one. He wasn't even sure what she really meant, only that he liked how it felt around him. "It's good to know you've got a friend, you know?"

Puck pulled out of the hug and took a few steps back then. "It also helps you remember that we all lose in life," he told her. "Those losses make for better conversation though, don't you think? Imagine what tonight would have been like if we had turned out like everyone else. I would have been bored to tears."

"You're not alone in how you've been, Noah."

Puck smiled and went in for one more hug. "We all got bruises," he shrugged before he started to walk off. He turned around and smiled at her over his shoulder. "Call me, anytime, just call me. Okay? I mean it, I expect to hear from you."

"You will!" she called with a happy giggle.

Rachel never did call Noah, but he eventually tracked Hiram Berry so that he could call her instead. Ten years later, after beer had turned into champagne and the gym had transformed into a country club, he found himself walking into yet another McKinley High reunion. He had been to Lima a few more times over the past decade, the last time a few months ago when he'd brought his son to visit his childhood home. He still didn't miss the high school or Lima. He had new memories now. And as he looked at his favorite face, the one he had looked for ten years ago on another night like tonight, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to his wife's lips. Rachel grinned at him and then let her hands fall protectively over her rounded stomach. They had three children now with a fourth, a little girl, on the way.

"Happy Anniversary, babe."

* * *

_This story is based on (and quotes) the Train and Ashley Monroe song, "Bruises." It is another one shot and will not have any additional chapters or a sequel._


End file.
